Coulomb dissociation of N 20,21

Neutron-rich light nuclei and their reactions play an important role in the creation of chemical elements. Here, data from a Coulomb dissociation experiment on N20,21 are reported. Relativistic N20,21 ions impinged on a lead target and the Coulomb dissociation cross section was determined in a kinematically complete experiment. Using the detailed balance theorem, the N19(n,γ)N20 and N20(n,γ)N21 excitation functions and thermonuclear reaction rates have been determined. The N19(n,γ)N20 rate is up to a factor of 5 higher at

Characterization of Silicon Photomultipliers after proton irradiation up to 101410^{14} neq/cm2n_{eq}/cm^{2}

Silicon photomultipliers (SiPMs) are highly-sensitive photodetectors emerging as the technology of choice for many applications, including large high-energy physics experiments where they often are exposed to high radiation fluences. In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in assessing the performance deterioration of such detectors after the irradiation with proton or neutron, with different fluence levels. In this work, samples of different FBK SiPM technologies, made with different manufacturing technologies, were irradiated at the INFN-LNS facility (Italy) with protons reaching fluences up to about 10^14 neq/cm^2 (1 MeV neutron equivalent) and their performances were characterized in detail after about 30-days room temperature annealing. The results show a significant worsening of the primary noise (dark count rate) of the detectors, which increases with the irradiation fluence, whereas the other performance parameters like the micro-cell gain, the correlated noise probability and the photon detection efficiency do not show significant variations up to 10^11 neq/cm^2 at least. The breakdown voltage estimation after irradiation is another important aspect for a SiPM. In this contribution, we show several methods for its estimation and compare the results. We also introduced new methodologies to characterize the performance of the SiPMs when they present a very high level of noise, such as the estimation of the dark count rate based on the measured reverse current, the estimation of variations in the photon detection efficiency through the measurement of the responsivity, and the measurement of the correlated noise and the gain through the average charge in response to a pulsed light signal. Lastly, we also analyzed the spatial localization of the proton-induced defects inside the device, i.e. the defects that mostly contribute to the increase of the DCR of the device, through the emission microscopy (EMMI) technique. In particular, we analyzed the SiPMs at the single cell level, trying to identify and spatially localize the defects

Long-term exposure of a polycrystalline diamond detector irradiated by 62 MeV/nucleon carbon beams

The present work reports on a long-term irradiation test performed on a 0.3-mm thick polycrystalline diamond detector prototype. The device, biased at 300 V, was continuously irradiated for about 60 h by using a 12C beam at 62 MeV/nucl. at the LNS-INFN Cyclotron facility in Catania. An ionization chamber, calibrated using a single crystal diamond detector, was used to evaluate the total absorbed dose in the diamond detector under study. Data analysis carried out on recorded oscilloscope waveforms shows no significant variation of the signal properties in terms of amplitude, slope and charge after exposure to an integrated flux of 6.2 10^13 ions/cm^2. The results indicate that a polycrystalline diamond detector can be used for calibrating intensity monitors at the future superconducting fragment separator Super-FRS at FAIR (Darmstadt)